Welcome to hell! The 5 locations around the globe that scientists believe could be the gates to the underworld
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If you've ever told someone to 'go to hell', you probably didn't have a real location in mind. While most people no longer believe that hell is a physical place, that has not always been the case. Scattered across the world, there are five terrifying locations that are claimed to be entrances to the underworld.
![[Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom (pictured), was believed by Jews in Jesus' day to have been a place of human sacrifice. By saying that sinners would be thrown into Gehenna, Jesus may have meant that they would not receive a proper burial. Over time, Gehenna became linked to the Christian idea of Hell and the underworld]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/10/93917981-14263635-image-a-48_1736506427891.jpg)
And experts now say that there could be some surprising scientific truths to back them up. From the nightmarish location that inspired Jesus' account of hell to the cave that mysteriously kills anyone who enters, these locations are as close to hell on Earth as you can get.
![[In modern-day Turkey, scientists have found an ancient Roman portal to the underworld with the power to kill anyone who enters (pictured)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/10/93917987-14263635-image-a-49_1736506435960.jpg)
In Iceland, you can find the ever-burning brimstone of Hekla Fell, a volcano believed by Christians to be the real location of hell. While in Belize, archaeologists are now piecing together the mysteries of the crystalised skeletons hidden within an eerie portal to the Mayan underworld.
![[The 'Plutonium' in Hierapolis was believed to be an entrance to the underworld. In reality, scientists found that the temple had been built above a geological faultline which produced enough CO2 to kill animals brought near it]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/10/93917071-14263635-image-a-50_1736506525437.jpg)
So, would you be brave enough to visit any of these real-life gates to hell?. In his 'Sermon on the Mount' Jesus famously warned that anyone who allows their hand or eye to sin will be cast into 'hell'. However, biblical experts believe that isn't really what Jesus said.
![[Hekla in Iceland was once believed to be the gates of hell through which souls would pass on their way to the underworld]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/10/93951867-14263635-image-a-51_1736506542004.jpg)
In the earliest version of the text, the word that Jesus uses is not 'hell' but 'Gehenna'. Rather than referring to a place of eternal torment, Gehenna is a real location just outside the walls of old Jerusalem. A contraction of the name Valley of Hinnom, or 'Ge-Hinnom', Gehenna is one of the deep gorges which can be found to the southwest of the old city.
![[This volcano earned its diabolical reputation thanks to a series of massive eruptions that began in 1104. Hekla produced so much lava and ash that medieval writers believed they had found hell]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/10/11/93953535-14263635-image-a-56_1736507370526.jpg)
